Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Novelisation
by JohnShel91
Summary: An innocent vacation in Paris unwittingly whisks young American George Stobbart away on a mysterious and compelling escapade which could change the fate of man. Accompanied by French photojournalist Nico Collard, George is thrown in the arms of intrigue as he uncovers a sinister collusion which could turn the world upside down.
1. Death of a King

**Disclaimer: I do not own Broken Sword. The Broken Sword franchise was created by Charles Cecil and is owned and developed by Revolution Software Limited. All that I own are any dialogue and activity that's either altered or doesn't appear in the original games.**

**Author's Notes:**

**\- I will be combining elements from both the original version and the Director's Cut.**

**\- Some of you may notice certain events or dialogue that require something else to happen in the game appearing beforehand here, or dialogue out of order. Now, while some of these may be accidental on my part, most of them were done from me analysing the game carefully.**

* * *

_"Paris in the fall, the last months of the year and the end of the millennium. The city holds many memories for me - of cafés, of music, of love... and of death."  
_\- George Stobbart

_"Paris. City of love, romance, and dreams - so they say. I used to say it too. But ever since that day, the day of the murder, I have always associated my beloved Paris... with death."  
_\- Nicole Collard

* * *

**Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Novelization**

**Chapter 1: Death of a King**

It was Nico's twelfth birthday. Her father, Thierry, handed her a wrapped gift. When she ripped off the paper, she uncovered a photographic camera. Her first camera. Nico loved it. And it was on that day she fell in love with photography.

That summer would be her last as a child. She and her father spent the days at the beach and the nights at their favourite cafés and restaurants. Before the summer ended, Thierry told his daughter how beautiful she looked, how proud he was of her.

Thierry was a pilot for the French government, and when the summer was over, he had to return to work. On that day, his plane awaiting at the end of the beach pier, he hugged his daughter goodbye before boarding his plane. Thierry and Nico had no idea what would happen next, no fear for the future... no warning.

And then it happened. As soon as the plane left the dock, the front propeller ignited, the engine exploded, taking the plane and Thierry Collard with it. And in that moment, Nicole Collard was alone.

* * *

Nicole Collard shot up from her bed, sweat and adrenaline pouring all over her body. She panted as the shock slowly subsided. She had had the nightmare again. No one who knew her would notice it, but she was used to it. Ever since that day, as every summer ended, the nightmare would return.

Nico looked at her watch. It was 7:30 am. Time for her morning bath. Most people found having a morning bath on a daily basis unusual, but then again, most people weren't Nicole Collard. For each time she had the nightmare, she had to wash away the sadness the next morning, let it dissolve and fade away. The sun always helped. And so did her work. Never a dull moment for a photojournalist.

Nico sat relaxed inside the tub of hot water, the smell of bubble bath soothing her senses. Then her phone rang. After withdrawing from the tub and wrapping herself, she answered.

"Collard! Get your ass over to the Palais Royal now!" It was her boss, Ronnie, editor of La Liberté. His tone sounded grouchy and firm - he was in a good mood this morning.

"You got an interview with Pierre Carchon."

Nico couldn't hide her surprise. "Pierre Carchon?"

"Yes. THE Pierre Carchon. No photos, so leave your gear at home. He asked for you personally."

"Personally? Me?"

"That's right. Don't ask me why. Anyhow, this could be big! So if he makes a pass, don't forget; just smile, say yes, and keep taking notes." So charming and so very apt.

"Yes, boss." Nico replied before putting the receiver down.

Suddenly, she felt the sun shining brighter than ever. This was the break she had long been waiting for. This was the assignment that could make her career. Pierre Carchon and his wife, Imelda, were just one step down from royalty. Carchon was a media king, a national hero... as well as one of the most infamous adulterers in Europe. Of course, Nico knew that, apart from the latter, everything about this guy was a falsity. And she, like she had done before, would prove this to the world.

After drying herself off and dressing smartly, Nico made her way to the Carchon residence, and set in motion a chain of events which would change her life forever.

When she reached the courtyard, she stopped. Here she was, the palace of the Media King and the Ice Queen. She took a moment to admire it, when a mime jumped out from behind the strange sculpture the Carchon's had outside their home. Nico hated mimes, but she knew that unless you humoured them, they wouldn't go away. The mime set up a Dutch door between the two of them. He managed to open the bottom half, but struggled to open the top half, which was locked. So Nico crouched down to slip under the top. She thanked the mime and continued on her way, the mime grinning with appreciation.

After finally reaching the front door, Nico pushed the doorbell on the intercom.

A woman's voice rang from the intercom. "Yes? What is it?"

"Mademoiselle, my name is Nico Collard. I am here to see Monsieur Carchon."

At first there was silence, then, "Come up. We're on the first floor."

Nico opened the doors and went up the stairs. She knocked on the door at the top, and it opened to reveal an aging woman with pale skin, light blonde hair and a white lace dress. Nico knew immediately who she was: Imelda Carchon, Media King Pierre's wife and Ice Queen of Paris. Given her appearance, it was hardly a wonder why they called her that. Even the mope on her face looked like it had been frozen solid for years.

Nico stepped into the hall and extended her hand. "Madame Carchon? It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Yes, I'm sure." Madame Carchon responded in that nationwide recognisable icy voice. She didn't even take Nico's hand. Instead, she just shut the door and led Nico down the hall. The Ice Queen was certainly living up to her reputation. Nico looked around. Everything looked like it had come from the 18th century. Even the telephone looked antique.

"Will you be... staying for the interview?"

"Mademoiselle, I know little of my husband's business affairs..." Nico thought she saw the Ice Queen manage a small smirk. "And I care even less."

Behind her, Nico saw the famed Pierre Carchon exit one of the rooms and make his way toward them.

"I certainly have no intention of watching him paw over yet another pretty little journalist."

_Pretty_. _Little_. Nico couldn't help but smirk. "You're too kind, Madame."

Pierre finally joined them. He presented Nico with that suave and charming grin he was most famous for, especially with the ladies.

"Ah! The talented - and very beautiful - Mam'selle Collard. Such a pleasure to meet you at last."

"Monsieur Carchon, I'm honoured-" Her voice was cut off as Carchon pecked her on both cheeks. Madame Carchon sneered.

"Oh, I sure you are." Even if she tried to hide her disdain, she would have failed. Nico, on the other hand, was under orders to smile, so she managed to force that fake smile she'd done many times. She'd have to put a reminder in her notebook to wash her face later.

"I'll fix some tea." Madame Carchon said, before making her way to the kitchen.

"Call me Pierre, please. But I do not flatter you idly. I was a friend of your father. He was a great man." Hearing these words took that fake smile of Nico's face, and drew a genuine one... of surprise!

"My father? He never mentioned-" Once again, Carchon cut her off.

"He and I were very close. And then his death, so tragic. I must-" This time, it was Carchon's turn to get cut off. There came a sound from the room Pierre had just left; the sound of something smashing. Carchon couldn't hide his annoyance.

"Imelda," he called out. "Your damned cat's in my study again!"

He turned to Nico and smiled again. "Excuse me for one moment, my dear girl." And he turned and made his way back to the study, grumbling something about another Ming vase.

With him gone, Nico was able to relax her face. She turned and stood at the door of the kitchen. Madame Carchon had put a couple of teabags into the teapot. Now she was proceeding to fill it with hot water. Nico was surprised the Ice Queen didn't melt from the steam, or the heat of the kettle.

"You journalists are getting younger each year."

"Perhaps it is the rest of the world getting older, Madame?"

Madame Carchon turned to fix Nico with a stare, but before she could say anything, a scream erupted. A scream from the study. Quick as a flash, Nico turned and ran toward the study. There was no cat. Just Carchon lying in a lifeless heap on the floor.

"My god! What-?! Monsieur Carchon...!"

Her voice was cut off. At first, she thought it was the pale white face of Carchon's ghost standing over his corpse, then she realised it was a mime. That same mime she encountered outside! He was pocketing a supressed pistol. Then he noticed Nico standing at the door. At first he seemed panicked, then he beckoned her toward him. Nico wasn't sure why, but she complied. Then before she had time to react, the mime connected her face with a fist made from one his his gloved hands, and she fell unconscious.

When Nico came to, her head was aching. She rubbed her head and sat up. When her eyesight returned, the first thing she saw was Madame Carchon standing over the lifeless body of her husband. She had one hand over his chest and the other over her eyes. When she withdrew her hand, she turned to see Nico stand up.

"He's dead." she said.

After shaking her head to brush off the dizziness, Nico suddenly remembered, there had been another man in the room. "There was a man... it was the mime! Do you think he-?"

Madame Carchon cut her off. "Well, I believe we can rule out suicide, don't you?" She then rose to her feet. Even with the hot tears trickling down her cheeks, her face didn't seem thawed enough to show any expression. No wonder they called her the Ice Queen.

Mimes and guns didn't usually go together. But Nico had an idea that this was no ordinary mime. She'd come across this kind of murderer before. She'd even written a story about him: The Costume Killer, as she called him at least.

"I must call the police. You had better stay here." And she left the study.

Madame Carchon would have been top of Nico's list of suspects, if she hadn't already seen the killer herself, and if she hadn't already come across couple of murders just like this. One of the most important men in Europe murdered, and here was she, Nico Collard, alone at the scene of the crime. Should she wait for the cops? Or start her own investigation? Normally, she would have waited, but in this case, it was a no-brainer.

She made her way to the corpse and kneeled over it. Some people hated searching corpses for clues. Nico, on the other hand, was OK with it. It reminded her of an old boyfriend. Before she did anything, she slipped on a pair of gloves she kept in her pocket. From being a reporter, she'd learned to always wear gloves while snooping around, for fear of leaving fingerprints.

Carchon's lifeless eyes stared blankly at nothing. Nico carefully drew his jacket to the side. Carchon had been shot, the wound visible in his left abdomen. In his inside pocket, she saw what looked a ticket. She knew that taking the ticket would mean she'd tampered with the evidence, but she needed all the clues she could find. She carefully drew the ticket from his pocket. There was no going back now. She quickly pocketed the ticket then restored Carchon's jacket.

Before standing up, Nico closed Carchon's eyes. It was the least she could do for the poor fellow. As she did this, her eye caught something on the floor next to Carchon's head. It was one of Nico's hair clips. Her favourite, in fact! It must have fallen when she was knocked down. She retrieved it before standing up.

As she got to her feet, Nico felt a small draft blowing in from the outside, even though the windows were closed. She drew the curtain back, and saw that a small round piece of glass had been cut out of the pane. This had been a professional job; it had to be the work of the mime. Nico thought about checking the glass more carefully, but she didn't want to cut herself and leave blood. You could have called her old-fashioned, but she preferred to keep her DNA to herself. Instead, she opened the window and looked out. The window was on the first floor above the ground, but Nico could see that same sculpture where she first encountered the mime. That confirmed her suspicions. The mime, the killer, must have used a ladder to reach this window. Then he must have cut the piece of glass out to reach inside and unlock the window, then broken the vase to lure Carchon into the room. Then, when the job was done, he went out the way he came in, and took the ladder with him. He was probably long gone by now. Nico closed the window again.

Before leaving the study, Nico decided to look around. Even if this so-called national hero had just been murdered, and it had been the same killer she'd come across, she had come here on another task. There wasn't much, except for the bust that was mounted just by the spot where Carchon's body fell. It was a bust of... Pierre Carchon, humble servant of La France, media tycoon and serial philanderer. There was another bust just like it in the corner. Its eyes seemed to follow her around the room. On the wall next to Carchon's writing desk was bookcase, filled with obscure first editions, rows of titles she didn't even recognize.

Upon leaving the study, Nico tried to open the door next to it, but it was locked. Around the corner, she could hear the Ice Queen talking on the phone. Just outside the study door was a magnificent antique Louis XIV table with a white antique cloth. Madame Carchon had taste at least, but then again, with a husband that rich, taste was easy. At the corner on the other side of the table was an easel with a beautifully painted landscape. She also had talent, but Nico certainly wasn't going to tell her that. Sitting in the palette of the easel was a tube of acrylic paint. French ultramarine, just the colour she was after for her bathroom. Nico picked it up.

Then she heard Madame Carchon say, "I'm sorry, I have to go. Someone is..." Then she realized that the easel was set up on the corner of the corridor that turned to the far end where the Ice Queen was sitting. She put the receiver down and turned to Nico.

"Young lady, what are you doing?"

Feeling a shred of guilt, Nico stammered, "Uh, I'm sorry. It's just that... this paint... i-it's my favourite colour, and-."

"For God's sake, keep the damned stuff." Then she buried her eyes in her hands and wept bitterly. She was clearly in shock, though still every bit as hostile. Nico almost felt sorry for her.

Despite how the Ice Queen had treated her, Nico knew how she felt. She'd felt the same way once. She walked over to Madame Carchon and sat next to her.

"Excuse me, Madame."

Madame Carchon brushed her eyes and turned to Nico. "Yes?"

Nico took a deep breath. "I-I'm so sorry for your loss, Madame."

"No, you're not. You're a journalist. Journalists don't feel sorry."

"That's not true!"

"We shall see."

"Why did your husband send for me? What did he want to discuss?"

Madame Carchon shrugged. "I have no idea. His business was his business."

"He never told you anything?"

"No. And frankly, I preferred it that way."

The Ice Queen smirked. "This must be quite a scoop for you. I suppose you're already inventing the headlines."

Nico was starting to get annoyed. "Just because I am a journalist-."

The Ice Queen snapped, "Don't patronize me! You're all cut from the same cloth! Do you have any moral sense at all?"

"Yeah. That's why I do this job."

"You do it to see your name in print."

Nico had to chortle. "As if. My editor gets the by-line. I just do the work."

"Well, don't expect my sympathy."

Nico decided to change the subject before it got ugly.

"Why would a mime want to kill your husband?"

"Who knows? Pierre had lots of enemies. Half the husbands in Paris, for a start."

This wasn't getting anywhere. The police could turn up at any minute. Somewhere in this house, there were clues to the murder, and Nico needed to find them.

"The police will be here soon, Madame. Is there anybody you would like me to contact? Family? Friends?"

"No." Madame Carchon replied, wiping away the last of her tears. "I have no other family. Pierre and I were... Well, let's just say he was all I had really."

She chuckled before continuing. "Not much was it? The dutiful wife, that was my role. He never talked, never let me in."

"Well," Nico said. "I know one thing, Madame."

"What?"

"If you want to find out who killed your husband, then you should let me do the job, not the police."

The Ice Queen looked at her, puzzled. "Why? How do I know I can trust you?"

Nico knew she couldn't lie. "Your husband invited me here today because he needed me. I think he knew somebody wanted to kill him... and he knew I could help."

"I doubt it was your database he was after."

"You're wrong. I was onto his killers already. I'm sure of it. Please. You owe to him, if not to me."

"I don't know..."

"Look, all I need is a few more minutes to look around before the police come."

The Ice Queen actually smiled. "You really do have a moral sense, don't you? I trust so few people. And perhaps Pierre really did think you could help. Of course, it wouldn't have stopped him from seducing you too."

"What makes you think I'd yield?"

"Same reason most of them did: because their boss told them to, and to pay the bills."

The two shared a good laugh. Nico knew that the Ice Queen did have a point. After the laugh died down, Madame Carchon reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a key, handing it to Nico.

"Here, take this. It's the key to the drawing room. It's at the end of the hall next to the library. It was Pierre's private room. I rarely went in there. Couldn't really. I was too scared of what I might find."

"_Like the bodies of his previous wives, maybe?_" Nico only thought that to herself because she knew it wasn't the kind of thing the Ice Queen needed to hear right now.

"Thank you. I promise you won't regret this."

Nico stood up, leaving the Ice Queen to hang her head in bereavement. She went back to the door at the end of the hall, unlocked it and walked in. Now she was getting somewhere.

Nico looked around. On the wall by the door was a painting, showing the Carchons together. In love.

"_As the poet said: "The past is a different country."_" Or had Nico read that in a fortune cookie?

In the painting, Monsieur and Madame Carchon were in the fields outside their palace, each holding a hunting shotgun. Two hunting dogs lay nuzzled at their feet.

"Noblesse oblige." Nico said to herself.

Then Nico's eyes came upon what looked like a small button hidden in the picture frame. Nico pushed it. There was the faintest of clicks, then the painting opened from the wall like a door. Behind the picture was a safe. It looked pretty secure. She tried to open it, but it was locked. She needed the key. There was no point asking Madame Carchon. She probably didn't know the safe even existed.

Nico decided to look around the sitting room. The French sofa in the middle of the room was antique. For one horrible moment, Nico had an image of a naked Carchon wriggling around on it with a young journalist.

"Ugh!"

It was the kind of sofa that Nico could do a good Marie Antoinette impression. It was very popular at parties, especially with gay guys. Don't ask her why.

She went over to the desk on the other side. As expected, the desk was yet another priceless antique. Yawn. The blotter and in-tray had clearly been placed with mathematic precision. Then her heart skipped a beat. That objet d'art at the head of the blotter. It was a carved elephant. But not just any carved elephant. It had been made by her father. Nico knew for certain because in her apartment, carved into a box he had made, she had its exact twin. So Carchon had known her father. They really must have been friends.

As soon as Nico snapped back to reality she checked the drawers. All she found were some art and stationery stuff. No sign of any key though. Dammit! Maybe he kept it in his study.

Nico left the salon, and as she was about to enter the study, something caught her eye. That beautiful cloth that had been draped over the table. She hadn't thought about it at first, but now it looked as if it has been deliberately placed in that one particular area. As she lifted it up, she noticed it was embroidered with an unusual cross. Reckoning it might just turn out to be useful, Nico pocketed the cloth. There was a tiny hole in the table top; part of the inlay had been chipped away. Even her fingernail wouldn't fit into such a small hole. So she drew her hairpin from her pocket and slipped one end in. There was a click and then... Ah-ha! A secret compartment flipped open, and there a key, a modern key, had been hidden.

"_Nico, you are just so damned good at this stuff!_"

Nico took the key. Its notches matched the hole in the safe. Laid out on the wall behind the table was a tapestry bearing a medieval pageant that must have cost a fortune. Original, no doubt.

Nico returned to the lounge. Instead of comforting Madame Carchon, she was ransacking her flat. Why? Well, for one thing, she had been rude to her so she had it coming. But in all honesty, it was because there was something going on here and she had to get answers before the cops arrived. She slipped the key into the hole in the safe, turned the handle, and the safe opened. And inside was... some kind of artefact. Nico removed it and looked it over. On the surface were strange symbols. It looked like the printer blocks she'd made at art school. If there was one thing she'd learned about symbols, it was that they were always important. But these symbols, scratched into the stone, were impossible to read. She needed to find a way of printing them. Sure, it was tantamount to stealing, but she knew Madame Carchon didn't know about the stone artefact, and Carchon was past caring.

Nico brought the stone to the desk and set it down. At least the stone was round. But what could she use for ink? And then she remembered the tube of paint she took from the easel. Then Nico remembered seeing a box of rubber gloves in one of the drawers.

Nico took a pair of rubber gloves from the box, carefully removing her own and slipping them on. As she did this, she looked through her options carefully. It might have been a good idea squeeze the paint onto the blotting paper, but then it would have just soaked into the paper. And then there was the in-tray. Squeezing the paint into it would ruin it. She could just put the paint straight onto the stone cylinder, but that would be too messy; the paint would go everywhere. So, there was only one option left. Nico laid the white cloth she took from the table on the blotting paper, then smeared the blue paint all over it. Whenever she did something messy, she really liked to put her heart into it. She hoped this was going to help. They didn't make lace like this anymore. She then wiped the paint-covered cloth over the surface of the stone cylinder.

With the roller ready, she pressed it down hard into the blotting paper and rolled it carefully. Doing this took her right back to art class at school. And Maurice, her gorgeous art teacher. Such a shame they had to fire him. Ah well... Concentrate, Nico! Concentrate!

Genius! The roller and the paint worked just as she'd planned! But what did it say? A secret message had been printed onto the blotting paper. It was some kind of coded message. It read, 'Sub-Judice'. Now, Nico may not have learned a lot as a journalist, but this was a term she knew well: it meant a legal case that is before the courts. Below it was a sequence of letters that made no sense - 'SDSSDSS'. It didn't take long for the blotting paper to soak up the paint and dry. Once it had, Nico removed the paper from the leather holdings, folded it up and put it in her pocket.

Nico was pretty sure she had found all that she could here. Besides, all this opulence was making her pine for her regular life of poverty. This sure was a huge story. It was also one heck of a puzzle, with a lot of pieces missing. But she was going to crack it. And if she could just remember the name of that fancy prize you got for being an ace journalist, she was definitely going to win it this time.

She removed the rubber gloves, making absolutely sure the paint was on the inside before she folded them and slipped them into her pocket. Then she put her own gloves back on. She also decided to take the carved elephant. It clearly meant nothing to Madame Carchon.

Before she left, Nico decided she had a few more things to discuss with Madame Carchon. She returned to where she was sitting in the hallway.

Madame Carchon looked up and asked, "Did you find anything useful?"

Nico showed her the elephant. "This carving, do you know anything about it?"

"It was Pierre's. What does a statue have to do with-?"

"Please. I need to know."

The Ice Queen thought carefully. "It was given to him, I think. By a friend. Something to do with Africa."

"He never explained anymore?"

"No. But I think it was important to him. Always on display. Why?"

"It was carved by my father."

Madame Carchon was clearly surprised. "Oh. I see. I didn't know."

Nico pocketed the statue. "How did your husband know my father?"

"I have no idea."

"You didn't know him? Thierry Collard?"

"Pierre knew a lot of people I didn't know. Most of them women."

"Did he say nothing to you about my father?"

"No, he never mentioned him. I'm sorry."

Nico decided to end that conversation there.

"Madame Carchon, I-"

"Please, call me Imelda. We hardly need the formalities now, do we?"

Nico smiled warmly. "Imelda, I promise I will do everything I can to find the killer."

"Thank you, my dear."

"And if the police ask-."

Madame Carchon smiled. A genuine and expressive smile. "Don't worry. You were never here."

And with that, Nico left the flat.

As she made her way across the courtyard, she wondered where she was going to go next. Then she remembered the ticket she took from Carchon's body.

As soon as she left the estate, she took the ticket out and inspected it carefully. It was a boat ticket, stamped 'Bateaux de la Conciergerie'.

Using her instincts as a journalist, Nico suddenly realised there was a connection between this ticket and the coded message. The Conciergerie on the Ile de la Cité, by the river, housed the ancient law courts. So 'Sub-Judice' could, in this case, mean literally 'under the law courts'. Below the Conciergerie!

From what she knew about him, Pierre Carchon wasn't the type for messing about on the river. He had been up to something down there. Something that got him killed. 'Sub-Judice' was the key. Nico was going to have to find a way under the Conciergerie. She decided to head straight for the quayside on the Ile de la Cité. If there was a way of getting under the Conciergerie, it would have to be from there.

* * *

**Author's Note: That's the end of this chapter, and more on the way! Hope you enjoyed it! Until next time, feel free to R&R!**


	2. Secrets on the River

**Disclaimer: I do not own Broken Sword. The Broken Sword franchise was created by Charles Cecil and is owned and developed by Revolution Software Limited. All that I own are any dialogue and activity that's either altered or doesn't appear in the original games.**

**Author's Notes:**

**\- Here's the next chapter.**

**\- Some of you may notice certain events or dialogue that require something else to happen in the game appearing beforehand here, or dialogue out of order. Now, while some of these may be accidental on my part, most of them were done from me analysing the game carefully.**

* * *

**Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Novelization**

**Chapter 2: Secrets on the River**

About an hour later, Nico arrived at the quayside just below the Conciergerie. She went down the stairs and looked out. There were no boats except for a small barge. It reminded her of an old boyfriend who once owned a barge. Dampest relationship she'd ever had, in every way. There were a couple of small rusty fences. They must have been used to store boat and fishing supplies. Nico tried opening both fences, but neither would move. Both fences were permanent fixtures.

Nico continued down the quay until she came across a bigger fence. Carved into one of the slabs next to it was a cross that looked familiar. It was the one Nico had seen embroidered on the lace cloth she'd picked up at Carchon's apartment. She knew she was on the right track. She tried pushing the fence but it wouldn't move. Then she noticed a strange pair of locks, which she figured were stopping the latches from releasing the gate. Inspecting them more closely, she noticed the locking mechanisms were set up like sliding block puzzles.

Nico knew about sliding puzzles because in her spare time in college, she'd play them with her friends. It was just a case of moving the rectangular blocks along their length. On either lock, Nico saw that at least one block had a small knob, which she figured was the actual locking bar for the latch. It took a while but she managed to release the latches. The first one wasn't too bad, but the second was somewhat trickier. Perfect! Nothing like a good convent education honing your lock-picking skills.

Once the latches were released, the gate fell forward. It was almost as if the fence was intended to double as a bridge. Nico stepped inside. She thought about pulling the fence back up so as to avoid drawing attention, but she really didn't want to risk trapping herself in this place.

For a room full of junk, that was one very sophisticated lock system. There wasn't much, just some old fishing tools. The only points of interest were the wrecked skiff that stood upright on its stern in the middle of the grotto, and what had to be a massive stone door at the other end. This place was definitely fishy, in more ways than one.

Very cautiously, Nico pushed over the skiff over. It hadn't been touched for years, just like Nico's old exercise bike, so Nico figured it had to have been meant to hide something. The state it was in, the skiff wasn't particularly seaworthy, anyway. Of course, once the skiff was down, the only secret to discover was an old shell case. She picked it up. Probably came from the '50s, Nico figured, as she grew up watching war movies. She wondered what it was doing here.

Nico walked over to the door. There were no handles or anything obvious. But there had to be a mechanism to open it. A rough hole was cut into the pillar next to the door. The words 'Sinister' and 'Dexter' were carved on either side. Now, any good convent girl like Nico knew that 'Sinister' was the old Roman word for 'left', and 'Dexter' for 'right'. But what did it mean here?

Getting an idea, Nico slid Carchon's stone cylinder into the hole, and it slotted in with a satisfying click. Mystery solved. Now, she figured the sequence of letters she found on that printed message had to be the combination. Taking the print from her pocket, she perused the sequence - 'SDSSDSS'. Then she returned it to her pocket and grabbed the cylinder. She slowly turned it to the left (or the 'Sinister' side) before she heard a satisfying click, which caused the cylinder to spin back into its original position, then slide forward a little bit. This told her she'd turned it to the right position. She did the same thing again, this time turning it to the right ('Dexter' side), and there came another click; another step closer. It was like tumblers in a safe. Now that she'd got the hang of it, Nico continued the sequence until she heard sound of a lock clicking open. She loved that sound. There was a rumbling sound, and the stone door slid open. At the same time, the stone cylinder slid out, back to its original position. Nico removed it and went through the door into what had to be an old antechamber.

Nico looked around. There were no doors, no mechanism, no clues. It appeared to be a dead end. Dammit!

"_Now what?_", Nico thought to herself as she leaned on an old stone cross. Then her hand slid, and then the slab came back down with a hell of a force.

"Oh, my God!"

Nico started to shudder. She was trapped. Now how was she going to get out? Then she noticed a hole she hadn't noticed before. Was that there a moment ago? It looked like it was made to hold something specific, but what? Nico let go of the cross and took the cylinder from her pocket. As she did this, she noticed the stone door open again, and that hole to disappear behind some kind of stone panel. This gave Nico an idea. She turned back to the cross, which she only then recognized as the one on Madame Carchon's cloth. She took hold of it, and tried many ways to move it until pushing it forward got a result. It actually bent forward, almost like a beer pump. So lifting the cross closed the entrance door, and also opened the stone panel. Ingenious! But with nothing hold it up, the cross would drop back down. If Nico was going to take a closer look at that panel, she'd have to find a way to keep the cross up.

Quickly thinking, Nico lodged the shell case she found into the gap, and when she let go, the stone cross stayed propped up. Now she was getting somewhere.

She slid the stone cylinder into the round slot precisely carved into the stone work. The artefact slotted into the hole perfectly. Then, behind the old walls, she could hear some kind of mechanism groaning into life. Then there was a sudden silence. She looked around until she noticed a shimmer of light coming under one of the other slabs. A hidden door. This was getting interesting. But now the mechanism had jammed. She was going to have to find a way to prise it open.

Nico quickly got another idea. She removed the shell case from under the cross. The cross didn't drop back down this time. The cylinder must have activated some kind of mechanism to hold it up. Nico tried to squeeze the shell case into that gap, but it was too narrow. She needed something flatter.

Again, another idea came to mind. Nico removed the stone cylinder from the open panel, and this caused the cross to drop back down. Now, before she did anything, Nico carefully placed the shell case just under the door of the entrance. As she did this, she noticed words etched into the floor. They read 'Ul lex vel nex summitto'. This translated 'To the law or unto death, submit'.

"I guess these people didn't believe in Liberté, Egalité, or Fraternité." Nico said to herself. Sure, Nico had to admit it. She was a swot at school. She also wore lipstick and the nuns never knew.

With the shell case in place, Nico went back and lifted the cross. Just as Nico hoped, the stone slab flattened one end of the shell case. Now she was ready. After retrieving the half-flattened shell case, Nico repeated the process, and this time, she was able to squeeze the flat end of the shell case under the gap and prise the jammed door open. Another good use for a shell case. Another secret room. Somebody had something to hide. But was it what she was looking for? Nico stepped through.

Wow! Through the darkness, she could see that it was some kind of state room... but for what purpose? And how did it tie in with Pierre Carchon?

Nico noticed an old circuit breaker by the door. It was like something from a _Frankenstein_ movie. She flipped the switch and was pleased to discover it sill worked. The room lit up as bright as day. Amazing!

Nico looked around. There were seven pillars erected across the room. Hanging from each of the pillars was the same red flag. The flags had faded, but their message was still pretty clear - Fascist regalia; a message of hate.

There were several desks laid out. All the desks were covered with a layer of dust... except one. Clearly, no one had worked here for years, and yet it was pretty clear from the lack of dust that someone had been working at this particular desk very recently. There was a coffee mug rested on a coaster. The dregs at the bottom of the mug hadn't dried out, or gone mouldy; it wasn't more than a day old.

There was also a file on the desk, with a name printed across the front: 'NICOLE COLLARD'.

"Oh, my God!"

Her hands trembling, she opened the file. Attached to the inside cover with a paperclip was a picture of her taken with a telephoto lens. She knew Carchon wouldn't have taken these pictures himself. This was big, and organised. The front sheet was a printout with her personal information; everything from her favourite food to her waist size.

"They were right about chocolate, but come on, you guys. I'm a size 10."

She flipped through the file until she came across a familiar article. It was the article she had written about the Costume Killer, and Carchon had cut it out. Her suspicions were right. Two businessmen had been killed: one in Italy, one in Japan. In each case, the killer had worn a costume - a snowman and then a penguin. But that wasn't the only link between the murders; both the victims had been big media do-gooders, and Nico had proved they were just the opposite. So how did they fit in with Carchon?

One thing was clear, someone connected to Carchon had been watching her.

As Nico closed the file, she noticed one of the drawers ajar. She wondered what was inside it. She opened it and inside, she found a note encoded with some kind of substitution cipher, with letters substituted for strange symbols. She tried to close the door again, but it wouldn't move. As she tried to force it, it came off in her hand.

"Damn! Don't you just hate it when that happens?"

As she put the drawer on the floor, she caught a glimpse of something. A photo, long lost had fallen down the back of the drawer. She withdrew it and examined it. It was a very old photograph, but there was no mistaking the guy in the foreground: Carchon. Behind him were armed soldiers, a burning village... and a corpse! The photograph was cropped on the right-hand side; somebody else in the picture obviously didn't want to be in it anymore. Nico wasn't surprised. This was Africa is the sixties. An uprising was being brutally suppressed. And here was Mister Media himself, Pierre Carchon, doing the suppressing. This photograph was not just powerful evidence; it was also Nico Collard's ticket to one explosive story.

Nico had enough for a story. An amazing story that was going to make her reputation and blow Carchon's to pieces. She needed to get home fast, and start typing.

* * *

Later that afternoon in her apartment, Nico was on a high. She'd written the best piece of her whole life, and it exposed Carchon's brutal past. The presses would be rolling now, with her name on the front page.

Her phone started ringing; she quickly answered.

"Bonsoir, Collard."

"Nico, it's Ronnie."

Nico smiled. "Hey, Ronnie. You cracked open the champagne yet?"

"Are you crazy?"

"What's wrong? Wait a minute... you didn't print it, did you?"

"Course I didn't print."

Nico's heart sank. "That's the best piece I've written-."

"The last as far as I'm concerned."

"Ronnie! It's important-!"

"It's suicidal! You can't destroy a national hero!"

"He deserved it!" Nico responded indignantly.

"His corpse isn't even cold yet."

Cold? When he was alive, he couldn't get any colder in you stuffed in a freezer of two hours.

"Ronnie," Nico said, half-aggravated, half-pleadingly, "two hours ago I told you what I found and you loved it. You begged me to write it up immediately."

"Well, Nico, two hours is a long time in newspapers."

"Someone's got to you, haven't they?"

"Nicole, listen up and listen good. Pierre Carchon had a lot of friends, powerful friends. Now for your own sake-."

Nico had figured out what he was going to say. "Forget what happened?"

"You got it. End of conversation. Goodnight."

Nico let the receiver slide out of her hands and fall to the floor. This should have been her big break. She thought about sending it off to another newsprint. But she knew there was nowhere else to sell this story. If Ronnie wouldn't print it, nobody would.

Before she knew it, she had kicked over the newspapers she kept piled up at the foot of her bed.

Once her angry died down, she went to the kitchen and got a beer from the refrigerator. She cracked open the can and took a swig. What was she going to do now?

As she thought about it, her mind fell on that coded message she found in the secret room. Even if her story had spiked, there had to be more for her to discover. She may find some clue in that.

She took the note from her jacket pocket and took it to her desk. She tore a lined page from her writing book and split it in two, writing the alphabet on one of them. She then took two sheets of tracing paper; she placed one sheet over the coded message and drew a line under each symbol, as well as copying the punctuation. Once this was done, she transferred the lines to the second lined paper. She placed the second piece of tracing paper over the alphabet sheet. This was her effective way of cracking codes. Now, all she had to do was guess the correct letters to the right symbol. She figured the first word easily: 'PIERRE'. Then she drew the corresponding symbol on the tracing paper over her alphabet under the appropriate letter, allowing her to fill in the other letters of the same symbols.

It wasn't long before she had decrypted the note. Once she had finished, it read:

'PIERRE,  
FULL REPORT TO FOLLOW, BUT  
THIS IS TOO URGENT TO WAIT.  
ARNO AND YAMADA BOTH DEAD.  
THIS NOT A COINCIDENCE. INDEED  
IT SEEMS THAT ALL OF US WHO CAME  
TOGETHER IN JULY ARE IN DANGER.  
TAKE GREAT CARE. X'

Nico wasn't sure what it meant, but she was certain of one thing: it tied Carchon's death to the other murders. People were getting murdered, and now she, Nico Collard, was part of it.

She wasn't the only one to make the connection between the Costume Killer murders. She'd been right all along: that was why Carchon had asked to meet her. But what did she know that he didn't?

That night she ordered pizza. No sooner had she handed the money over than her phone rang again, for the third time that day. She put the box down on the desk and picked up the receiver.

"Bonsoir, Collard."

"Mademoiselle Collard. My name is Plantard." Nico neither knew anyone by that name, nor recognized the voice. "I need to talk to you about your story. Your Pierre Carchon story?"

"How did you know about that?"

"There are people out there, Madame, who will very... upset by this story."

"Oh really? Well, it's their lucky day. The story's been spiked."

"Yes, I know." Nico had a way of identifying people by their voices, and this guy sounded like he could be middle-aged. "We must meet."

"We must?" And what did he mean, he knew the story was spiked?

"I have information relating to your 'Costume Killer' stories. Tomorrow morning, 8 am. Café de la Chandelle Verte, Rue Alain Corre. I shall be wearing a grey overcoat. You must talk to no-one about this."

"Hey, you can't just tell me what to-!"

"Tomorrow at eight! I'll be waiting." Then the line went dead. Nico set the receiver down. Then as she started eating her first slice, she was beginning to feel scared.

People complained about newspaper articles all the time, but not usually before they're printed. This Plantard guy, could she trust him? Should she meet him, or forget the whole business? She didn't really have an answer.

* * *

**Author's Note: That's the end of this chapter, and more on the way! Hope you enjoyed it! Until next time, feel free to R&R!**


	3. Bomber the Clown

**Disclaimer: I do not own Broken Sword. The Broken Sword franchise was created by Charles Cecil and is owned and developed by Revolution Software Limited. All that I own are any dialogue and activity that's either altered or doesn't appear in the original games.**

**Author's Notes:**

**\- Here's the next chapter.**

**\- Thank you all for reading and reviewing so far! **

**\- Some of you may notice certain events or dialogue that require something else to happen in the game appearing beforehand here, or dialogue out of order. Now, while some of these may be accidental on my part, most of them were done from me analysing the game carefully.**

* * *

**Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Novelization**

**Chapter 3: Bomber the Clown**

"Ten francs? Really?! OK. I'll take it, I guess."

George Stobbart had stopped at a bric-a-brac stall. He had taken an interest in the small Eiffel Tower models on display. However, he wasn't too pleased about the price. Nonetheless, he conceded and handed the money over.

As he pocketed the statue, he noticed a French policeman passing him.

"Say, Officer. Where can a guy get a cup of coffee around here?"

"Coffee, Monsieur? The Café de la Chandelle Verte is quite charming." He pointed in the direction of the café.

"Thanks, Officer." George replied before heading the direction the policeman pointed.

Once George reached the café, he sat down at one of the outdoor tables. A minute later, a pretty, young waitress with blonde hair, wearing a red dress and an apron, came out with a notepad. Hmm. Charming indeed.

"What'll it be, Monsieur?" She asked, smiling at George.

"Café au lait, s'il vous plait." The waitress took this down then went back inside.

George had only been in Paris for a week, but he'd already fallen in love with the city. This little café was his latest discovery.

It wasn't long before the waitress came back out with his coffee, which she laid on the table. George smiled in gratitude.

"Y'know, this really is a great city."

The waitress smiled back. George was pretty sure she was taking a shine to him.

"_That old Stobbart charm, I guess._"

Little did he know his reverie was about to be so rudely interrupted. As the waitress was turning to go back inside, she bumped into an old guy who had just arrived the café. The old geezer was a grey overcoat and hat, which he tilted to the waitress in apology. The guy was clearly of gentlemanly nature. Tucked under one arm, he had an old, brown leather attaché briefcase.

In the middle of the table he was seated at, there was a tub with some toothpicks. After taking his first sip, George took one out and placed it between his teeth as he watched the waitress lead the old man into the café. His face showed a look of annoyance and jealousy, but in actuality, he was already bored.

No sooner had they gone inside than George noticed a bunch of balloons floating near his face. They were normal, round balloons, mostly red, yellow and blue in colour, with grinning clown faces painted on them. George wasn't sure whether he did it out of annoyance or boredom, but as soon as he noticed them, George withdrew the toothpick from his mouth and popped the nearest balloon.

As the latex exploded, George was sure he saw another balloon right behind it. Then as it leaped forward, grinning right in his face, he realized it was the face of a real clown, with a white face, a big red nose, and big tufts of red hair on his head. George wasn't sure why, but he'd always hated clowns.

The clown had, in his hands, a concertina accordion, which he played as he danced around. George had never really liked accordion music either, but this was dire. Either this clown never learned how to play, or he was purposely playing badly as part of his act.

The clown sauntered past George and into the café. George sighed as he took another sip of coffee. As he set the cup down, he caught sight of that clown again. Only this time, instead of strolling across like before, he was running like a bat out of hell, his big shoes squeaking loudly on the stone pavement. Not only that, but instead of his accordion, he now had a leather briefcase in his hands. George almost instantly recognized it as the same briefcase he'd just seen that old man with. Had that clown just robbed the old man?

The clown ran across the street and into an alley. George had just jumped to his feet to run inside and warn the old guy, when there came a loud bang, accompanied by a big blaze of fire, which was followed by a flying flare of fire and glass. George was sent flying too.

The next thing George felt was his hand clench into a fist. When he opened his eyes, he noticed he was underneath one of the umbrellas of the outdoor table. He then realized that he felt no serious pain in his body. The umbrella had somehow protected him from the bomb blast.

George sat up and looked around him. He examined the jagged glass remaining in the café window. The blast had blown out the glass, leaving a gaping hole. The bunting above the window had been blown to shreds. The tables had been overturned by the explosion.

George Stobbart was really angry. One minute, he was on vacation. Next minute, some clown was blowing him up.

George knew right away what he was going to do: he was going to find that clown and bring him to justice. Because Justice mattered. Justice was up there with Liberty, and Equality. And - what was it... oh, yes. Fraternity.

"_After all, that was why I'd studied law, wasn't it?_"

Well, that and the money, of course.

George got to his feet and dropped the umbrella. It was of no use to him now, and he didn't want to disturb the evidence too much. As George picked himself up, all he could hear was the ceaseless drone of traffic. Life went on around him, but the explosion was to change his life forever.

As soon as the dizziness left his mind, George immediately ran into the alley the clown had fled into. It was a small, blind alley. There was no sign of the clown anywhere. George looked around. There were only three probable, if not possible, escape routes for that clown. There was just one window leading to one of the buildings next the alley. The only snag there was that it was protected by stout-looking iron bars. Didn't stop George from trying though. He took old of the bars and pulled hard. No such luck there. Next was an old drainpipe that led to the roof. The pipe looked as if it would bear George's weight. He took a deep breath and prepared to climb. George took hold, but just as he was about to lift his foot, the pipe came loose. Now it just hung there, limp and useless.

"I guess the clown hadn't escaped over the rooftops."

The only remaining option was that big, iron cover in the floor, which concealed the entrance to a drain or a sewer. George knelt down and tried to lift the cover with his fingers, but he couldn't gain any leverage. The cover was too heavy and awkward to lift with his bare hands. In spite of this, this cover looked as if it had been lifted recently. The clown had to have gone down here. George needed a crowbar or something. He looked around the alley again and noticed three battered old trashcans. Maybe the clown threw something in one of them.

George opened the first trashcan, but found nothing. He went to look in the second one, but as soon as he lifted it, he caught such a disgusting whiff of the contents that he had to replace it straight away and hold his nose for a couple of seconds. It smelled like someone had dumped a truckload of fish in a locker room on a hot summer afternoon. Once the smell had cleared, George tried the last trashcan. All he got out of this was a screech. A screech from a big, black and white cat that jumped out and ran out into the street. Fearing something else might be lurking in the depths of that trashcan, George quickly put the lid back on.

George took a moment to get his breath back. He'd had it with sticking his nose into French trashcans. There was clearly nowhere else to look in this alley, so George went back out into the street. He decided to look inside the café.

The place a wreck. George hoped the owners had insurance. Of course, he also hoped they were covered by bombings committed by clowns. Nah, they'd probably mark it down as a terrorism act, which it probably was. The mirrors had been smashed into a thousand pieces; bad luck for someone. The first thing that caught George's eye was a bottle of spirits, mysteriously undamaged, that stood on the bar. Looking at it, George realized that he needed a stiff drink after recovering from the explosion, but he hated the taste of brandy.

The next thing George noticed, not far from the doorway, was the body of the old man. The sight of that poor guy's staring eyes turned George's knees to jelly. It was hard to believe he'd seen him alive only minutes before. George reached into his jacket pocket, removed his white thermal gloves, and slipped them on. He liked to carry them around, just in case it got too cold, and now he knew he had to search that corpse without leaving any fingerprints. George tried not to meet his stare as he searched the dead man's pockets. Nothing. No wallet, papers, or credit cards; whoever he was, this guy's past was a blank page.

As George stood up, he turned to see, in the far corner, the pretty young waitress who served him. George walked over and looked her over. Thankfully, she was just unconscious. George lifted her up and helped her onto the nearest booth couch. She stared to stir and rub her head. George sat across from her.

"Oh, my head." She mumbled. "Never again! How much vodka did I drink? No, don't tell me!"

She opened her eyes and looked at George.

"What is your name, cheri?"

"George Stobbart, ma'am!"

"Oh... American?" She asked the question quite innocently, but George could sense her reserve. It was something which seemed to afflict all Europeans.

"You look like you could use a little help." George told the waitress.

"I could use a little drink. I feel sick, dizzy and bruised - and I don't even remember the party!" The waitress was clearly suffering from shock.

"Just relax and take it easy. You were knocked out."

"You don't say! What happened?"

"There's been an explosion. You should try not to move."

"Are you a doctor?"

"No. But I used to play hospitals when I was a kid."

The waitress rubbed her head again.

"Can you remember anything at all?"

The waitress shook her head. "Non. I need a drink. Would you pour me a brandy?"

"I don't think you should have any alcohol. You could be in shock." The waitress nodded her head.

"What about the old man? Is he dead?"

George didn't want this girl to become hysterical, but he knew he couldn't lie. "Yeah. I'm afraid he is."

"Ah, mon Dieu! I've never seen a real live corpse before... except for grande-maman. Of course, that was different - she was family. Has he gone stiff?"

George shook his head. "Shouldn't think so. He's only been dead a few minutes. Did you know the old man?"

"No, Monsieur. I never saw him before."

"How did he behave?"

The waitress thought hard before replying. "Well, kind of agitated. He kept looking about him, at the door, at his watch..."

"As if he was waiting for someone?"

The waitress nodded. "Yeah, I suppose so. He was worried about something, that's for sure. If you ask me, he was having an affair."

"An affair?"

"Well, he did have that kind of look about him. You know, like a guilty husband."

George would have liked to continue this conversation, but there were other matters to discuss.

"Do you remember what happen when that clown entered?"

"I remember that horrible tune he played, all right! It was like a funeral dirge!"

"Yeah. What did he do when he came in?"

"He went over to the old man."

"Did he speak to him?"

"No, just laughed at him. Then he grabbed the old man's briefcase, dropped his accordion and ran out of the door. That's all I can remember."

"Did the old man try to stop the clown?"

"He didn't have a chance."

"Well, what _did_ the old man do when the clown snatched his briefcase?"

"Nothing. He just sat there, like he was frozen."

This was all starting to dawn on George's mind.

"Did you see what the old man had in his briefcase?"

The waitress just shrugged. "He never opened it."

George nodded. He decided he'd exhausted all the questions he could ask the waitress. He stood up.

"Thank you, Mademoiselle. Now you stay here. I'm going to look around for evidence."

The waitress smiled at him, then rested her elbows on the table. George turned and walked out the door, removing his gloves in the process.

So, George thought. This was no random incident. The old man wasn't just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was premeditated robbery and homicide. The old man came here with his briefcase, and according to the waitress, he had been waiting at the door, rather tense. That must mean that he knew his life was danger, and was going to show whatever was in his briefcase to whomever he'd arranged to meet with. Unfortunately for him, the killer somehow found out about his meeting. He came here, disguised himself, waited for the old man to arrive, slipped inside, swiped the man's briefcase, swapped it for his accordion, which undoubtedly housed his bomb, and rushed out. Whatever the old man had in his briefcase, it must have been very valuable.

George wasn't sure what he was going to do when he caught up with that clown, but before he knew it, he was drawn into a desperate race between two ruthless enemies. The goal - the mysterious power of the Broken Sword.

* * *

**Author's Note: That's the end of this chapter, and more on the way! Hope you enjoyed it! Until next time, feel free to R&R!**


	4. An Inspector and a Reporter

**Disclaimer: I do not own Broken Sword. The Broken Sword franchise was created by Charles Cecil and is owned and developed by Revolution Software Limited. All that I own are any dialogue and activity that's either altered or doesn't appear in the original games.**

**Author's Notes:**

**\- Here's the next chapter.**

**\- Thank you all for reading and reviewing so far!**

**\- Sorry I haven't posted for so long. I've been preoccupied with other things.**

**\- I hope you're all keeping safe during these hard times.**

**\- Some of you may notice certain events or dialogue that requires something else to happen in the game appearing beforehand here, or dialogue out of order. Now, while some of these may be accidental on my part, most of them were done from me analysing the game carefully.**

* * *

**Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Novelization**

**Chapter 4: An Inspector and a Reporter**

Once he was outside, George looked around, trying to determine where the clown could have come from. One side of the road was cordoned off by a small brick wall with a spiky fence running across it. No way could the clown have come that way. The only possible direction was the one George came up. George wondered if somebody back there saw the clown.

After walking a small stretch, George came across a road worker, hacking at the side of the road with a pickaxe. The muscular workman wore a morose expression, like a silent warning to leave him to get on with his work. Judging by his work, he must have been here a while.

"_Maybe he saw something_." George thought.

"Freeze! Hold it right there!"

George jumped with a start. Spinning around, he saw a police officer holding his gun on him. This caught the attention of the workman.

"Whoa!" George cried, raising his arms. "Don't shoot! I'm innocent! I'm an American!"

"Can't make up your mind, huh?" The officer was clearly trying to act smug. He was a scrawny man in his fifties who resembled a constipated chicken.

George decided to get serious. "Look, Officer. I have rights, and I demand to see the American Consul!"

George wasn't sure if the police officer hadn't heard him, or simply wasn't paying attention. "Drop your weapons and get down on the ground!"

"Put that thing away, Sergeant Moue."

As the officer holstered his weapon, another man came from around the corner where he was standing. He was bald-headed, but had a rather sinister-looking black goatee. He seemed polite, though. He was wearing a beige suit with an olive-coloured overcoat. George figured he was another officer. He walked up to George and held up his badge. It read, 'INSPECTOR ROSSO, AUGUSTIN - HOMICIDE DETECTIVE.'

"I apologize, m'sieur, but I cannot permit you to leave."

"Am I under arrest?" George asked.

"Ah, non! I would simply like to ask you some questions." He pointed in the direction of the cafe. "En avant - to the cafe. Marche!"

George turned and walked back to the cafe, Inspector Rosso and Sergeant Moue not far behind. The workman went back to his work.

Once they reached the cafe, Inspector Rosso looked around. He was evidently aghast.

"What a mess! This bombing is an outrage, is it not?"

In the corner, the waitress saw the men enter and got to her feet.

"Stop that, m'sieur!"

George and Inspector Rosso turned to see Sergeant Moue crouched over the corpse.

"Stop holding your breath at once!" Was this guy really trying to wake the dead man up? George shook his head incredulously.

Rosso spoke, "Has it occurred to you that he may be dead, Moue?"

"Oui, m'sieur, but I prefer to look on the bright side. Besides, I recall a case where the killer escaped by feigning death!"

Feigning death? Well, this guy was pretty mashed up in such a way that no-one could fake. Sergeant Moue rose to his feet.

"However, in this case, the man is quite dead." He started talking boldly and proudly, like some master of deduction. "Clearly, the killer knew of his presence and-"

Inspector Rosso rolled his eyes. He clearly wasn't impressed. "How many times, Sergeant, have I warned you about premature extrapolation? All we know is that he is dead!"

Sergeant Moue shrugged. "It seemed reasonable to assume-"

"A great detective assumes nothing! Take Maigret, for instance."

"B... But he was a fictitious character, monsieur! Why, he was no more real than... than Poirot, or Tintin."

Rosso smirked. "That's different, Moue; they were comedy Belgians." The Inspector turned to see George struggling to keep a straight face. He looked back at Sergeant Moue.

"Anyway, it is unlikely that even you could learn much from talking to the dead. Examine the girl and take her statement... if you can."

As Moue walked over to where the waitress was standing, Rosso turned back to George and withdrew a notebook and pen from his coat pocket.

"Et maintenant, to business! Your name, please?"

"George Stobbart. I was born in Idaho, but I live in California." Inspector Rosso took this down.

"And what brings you to Paris, M'sieur Stobbart?"

"Travel. I'm touring Europe."

Rosso grinned. "You chose well. The city is most beautiful at this time of year, non?"

"Uh, yeah! I guess so... apart from the bomb blasts."

"Were you in the vicinity of the café at the time of the explosion?"

"Yeah. I was sitting out on the sidewalk. I was lucky I wasn't killed!"

The Inspector passed over George's remark with no reaction.

"Did you see the deceased enter the café?" George looked at the corpse and pursed his lips.

"Yes, I did." he replied.

"Was he alone?"

"Uh, yeah."

"And did he say anything to you?"

George shook his head. "Nah. He was more interested in the waitress."

Inspector Rosso wrote something in his notebook before he spoke again.

"Did you see anyone else in the café?"

George took a deep breath. "Well, there was this guy dressed as a clown. He was carrying an accordion."

"An accordion?" George wasn't sure whether his description surprised Rosso or not. "Bon. The picture is forming in my mind, and it is not a pretty one!" He turned to Sergeant Moue.

"Is the girl alright, Moue?"

"She'll live." the Sergeant replied. "She confirms the American's statement. A clown with an accordion, no doubt an elaborate and eccentric disguise."

"Very well." Inspector Rosso put his notepad away. "Eh bien. I have heard enough."

"What do you mean?" George asked.

Rosso smiled again. "I am satisfied that you know nothing. You may leave. I hope this little incident does not spoil the rest of your vacation."

George was a little bemused. He was a potential witness not only to a bombing, but to a murder case, and the police were dismissing him.

"What about my personal safety? Can't you at least give me some advice?"

Rosso shrugged. "What can I say? Stay alert, and look out for suspicious characters."

"And don't cross the road until the little man shows green." Sergeant Moue added.

"Great advice." George replied cynically.

"I honestly believe you are in no danger, m'sieur." If Rosso was trying to be reassuring, it wasn't working. "But should you remember anything of importance, please contact me." He took a small business card from his pocket and handed it to George.

"Thanks." George said, pocketing the card. It gave the address of a police station to the south of the Montparnasse Cemetery.

"That is all. You may go."

George turned and made his way to the door.

"There's not much to go on, m'sieur." Sergeant Moue said.

"Well, not on the surface, no." Rosso replied. "But what lurks inside the subconscious? If the door can only be opened..."

George turned to look at Rosso with bewilderment.

"Are you serious, m'sieur?" Moue sounded amazed. "I thought your interest in psychic detection was purely academic."

"'Academic?'" Rosso grinned. "You, my friend, are about to witness a scientific breakthrough!"

Rosso closed his eyes and brought the middle and forefingers of both his hands to his temples. This guy was strange. Kind of inscrutable. George rolled his eyes and shook his head before walking out. About a minute later, Sergeant Moue came to the door and stood guard.

George noticed a pretty, young raven-haired girl snapping photographs of the crime scene with a camera. The girl presented a confident but sullen mask to the world; an expression more suited to the face of a delinquent youth. When she saw him coming out of the café, she walked over to him. George smiled to her.

"Hi. My name's George Stobbart."

"Oh. An American, by the sound of it."

"Yeah, that's right. On vacation in Paris." He looked around at the wreckage. "Some vacation, huh?"

"So, you were here when the bomb when off?"

"I sure was. Sat right out here, in front of the café."

"Did you notice a middle-aged man, maybe sixty, with a grey hat and overcoat?" George couldn't believe it. The girl hadn't even asked how he was feeling.

"Yeah. He went inside just before the bomb exploded. You weren't, by any chance, related to him, were you?"

The girl chuckled. "Oh, no. Nothing like that. I'm Nico - Nicole Collard, from 'La Liberte'."

"What is that, some kind of nightclub?"

Nicole Collard scoffed. "No. it's a newspaper."

George was amazed. "You're a reporter?"

"Actually, I'm a freelance photojournalist."

George got an idea. "Say, you could interview _me_, about the bombing! You know, an eyewitness account?"

George drew up an imaginary news heading in the air.

"'Minutes after the outrage that shook the whole of Paris...' You know, real-life drama, human interest. That kind of stuff?"

Nico smiled. She was amused to some extent. "I'll just stick to the facts, thank you. Did you see who planted the bomb?"

"I know it's gonna sound crazy, but he was dressed like a clown."

"A clown?! Oh, god! It's him again!"

"_Again?_" George was astonished. "You've met the clown before?"

"It's... a long story."

"I've plenty of time."

"I don't."

George realized he wasn't going to get much in this matter. He decided to change the subject.

"Do you know a police inspector called Rosso?"

"Rosso? You could say our paths have a knack of crossing. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was almost deliberate."

"Wow."

"Have you seen Rosso, by any chance? Is he here?"

George pointed back to the wrecked café. "He's inside. Attempting to question a witness with his 'psychic powers'." He rolled his eyes and his hands around like some kind of mystic. Nico chuckled.

"What? That guy is weird!"

"Yeah. You wanna know something else weird?" Nico nodded.

"Rosso didn't so much as blink when I told him about the clown. It's as if he already knew."

Nico shook her head and sighed. "Typical of a cold fish like Rosso. Maybe he just can't take the pressure that goes with the job. I've seen cheeseburgers with more spunk."

They both laughed again. Nico looked at him with a playful twinkle in her eye.

"So this guy you were supposed to meet. Who was he?"

Nico drew a deep breath. "I didn't know him, but he called me last night. He gave me the name 'Plantard.' He asked me to meet him at the café. Somehow, the clown must have known about our appointment."

"How did he contact you?"

"Through the newspaper, 'La Liberte.' I'd written an article, see, linking two unsolved murders; one in Italy, the other in Japan. The cases were remarkably similar: a wealthy victim, no apparent motive, and a costumed killer." George swallowed hard.

"Plantard," Nico continued, "said he could supply me with more information. I guess now I'll never know what he wanted to tell me."

"Well," George joked, "not unless you have Rosso's gift for 'psychic interrogation'." Nico smiled.

This was starting to become an astounding jigsaw puzzle.

"Look, I understand your hesitancy, but why won't you tell me about this clown?" Nico looked at him, puzzled.

"Why do you want to get involved?"

"Because he almost killed me." George knew it wasn't much of an excuse. But what else could he say? "Isn't that reason enough?"

Nico thought for a second, then said, "I guess so." She took an old, brown envelope from her jacket pocket and started writing something on it.

"Listen, I'll give you my phone number. You help me with my story, and I'll let you in on what I know."

Then her tone turned serious, "And let's get one thing straight right now - this is strictly business."

George got the message. He took the envelope. "Okay. It's a deal."

"Right. Well, I have to go now. I have to develop these pictures. À bientôt, m'sieur."

"Fine. I'll see you soon."

Nico turned and walked away. George watched her go. He was intrigued by her and what she could tell him about the guy behind the explosion.

* * *

**Author's Note: That's the end of this chapter, and more on the way! Hope you enjoyed it! Until next time, stay safe and feel free to R&R!**


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